


Save The Last Dance

by Vanillybean



Category: Black Friday - Team StarKid, The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Dancing, F/M, Paulkins - Freeform, dalice - Freeform, emma wants to have fun, fancy parties are not their thing, it's a ball!, lex and paul would be good friends and this is the hill i will die on, lexthan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:40:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24799360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vanillybean/pseuds/Vanillybean
Summary: Emma and Paul attend a fancy party that Bill threw to congratulate Alice on getting into the college of her dreams, but Emma wants to have a little fun. She and Paul agree to split up and swindle people into buying them drinks...kind of.
Relationships: Alice/Deb (The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals), Lex Foster/Ethan Green, Paul Matthews/Emma Perkins
Comments: 7
Kudos: 40





	Save The Last Dance

**Author's Note:**

> if you've never heard the song Save The Last Dance For Me, that's what inspired me to write this :) it's a bop go listen to it

“Em! You almost ready?” Paul called out to Emma, adjusting his tie in the hall mirror. He heard a faint “almost!” from the other room so he went to investigate.

He knew Emma wasn’t one for big, fancy parties and neither was he, but this one was different. Alice was accepted into Harvard a week earlier and Bill was dying to do something extravagant for his only daughter. As much as they loved Bill, Paul and Emma both felt out of place at functions like this. And even though they wanted to support Alice, this really just wasn’t their scene, evident from Emma grimacing at her dress in the bathroom.

She jumped when Paul opened the door but quickly relaxed. She caught his eye, “I hate this fucking dress,” she snorted.

Paul thought she looked beautiful. The white lace trimming the golden, A-line dress, with her black heels made her look like a princess. In his standard black tuxedo and gold tie (to match his girlfriend, of course), he felt too under-dressed to even look at her. 

“I know,” he said. “But you look beautiful.”

He saw Emma try and fail to hide her reddening cheeks as she turned around to rummage through some jewelry. “You don’t look too bad yourself.”

\---

They finally arrived at the venue Bill rented out for the night. They weren’t really sure what it was before, but tonight it was a pop-up bar and ball type facility. Whatever he was going for, it didn’t look cheap. Lights were strung up from the awning, gold and pink silk ribbons lined the walls, a live band played soft music.

There was only one word Emma could use to describe it all: “ugh.”

“We don’t have to stay long,” Paul assured her. “Just get it, give Alice her card, thank Bill, and get out before 9.”

A sly smile spread across Emma’s face. “Or we could have a little fun.”

“What do you mean?”

She pointed to a bar in the back corner of the room. “Do you see that?”

“Yes..?”

“Okay. What are people doing at it?” she was too impatient for an answer. “They’re paying, Paul! Every other bar is free real-estate, but that one has the good stuff. I just know it.”

Paul nodded, confused but interested in her new excited tone. “Em I can buy you a drink-”

“No, no. Let’s spice things up! Come on, I bet half the people here are single, drunk, and willing to buy other single people expensive drinks.”

Paul’s stomach turned at the idea. “Emma I just don’t think I can flirt with someone else in good conscience.” 

“Oh, Paul, I’m a barista. I flirt all the time for tips, it’s fine!”

“I work in Technical Services! What if someone tries to kiss one of us?”

“If that happens we can call it quits. Please, Paul? I just want to make the most of this god forsaken, rich people, trust fund palace.”

He sighed, knowing he would regret this but wanting to make Emma happy. “Alright. Just this once, though.”

“Thank you, Paul. We won’t be here long, promise!” She pulled his tie to bring him to her level before kissing his cheek and splitting off. She had some rich folks to swindle.

\--

Emma was on her third man of the evening. Blake Walton, she learned his name was. It’s not that Blake was necessarily a bad conversationalist, he was just boring. Part of Emma’s technique consisted of the Three Question Rule: where are you from (good starter), how do you know Alice (to rule out relatives), and what are you doing later (the flirty bit that suggested she was interested).

The problem with Blake, though, was that he was from Hatchetfield, he knew Alice from church, and his plans for later included going to bed early so he could get up in time to work the morning shift at the local furniture store. Just as Emma was tired of the conversation, Blake asked her “can I buy you a drink?”

Finally, she thought. “I’d love that.” She sat at the bar while he ordered one for each of them. She had a plan for this. Once she’d finished her drink it was off to the next guy. All she had to do was say “excuse me for a minute, I need to use the ladies room,” and then disappear into the crowd. However, when she finished this time and excused herself, she didn’t count on him saying “no worries, I’ll walk you there.”

\---

Paul was not having a good time. He found one woman that he thought looked approachable, but when he started to say hi, her girlfriend came around the corner. Don’t go for people in relationships, Paul, he told himself.

He didn’t really have a plan for this. It wasn’t like he could ask someone to buy him a drink and he didn’t want to buy a stranger something. He shuffled awkwardly about 30 feet away from Emma, not wanting to be away from her.

He felt aggressive, enthusiastic tapping on his sleeve. “Oh my god, Ben,” the voice said. “You have to try these-”

Paul turned around to the shock and horror of the stranger. “You’re not Ben,” she squeaked.

Paul couldn’t help but smile. He could tell the girl was in high school, or at most just graduated like Alice, so he obviously wasn’t going to try anything. “No, I'm not. It’s alright, though. Can I help you find him?”

“Oh, no” she scoffed. “Ben is my ex, I’ve been trying to lose him since he noticed me. Look at this.” She held up her plate of cheese, which Paul figured was the thing she wanted Ben to try.

“Taste one,” she ordered.

He wasn’t hungry, but something in her face said he was Going To Try It whether he wanted to or not. He let the smallest cube melt on his tongue as his face twisted in disgust. “This is horrible,” he swallowed.

“That’s the point. I thought if I kept bothering him about these he’d get annoyed and leave me alone. I’m Lex, by the way.” she outstretched her hand.

“Nice to meet you, Lex. I’m Paul. Are you a friend of Alice’s?”

“Yeah, we met last year, sometimes we do double dates with Deb and Ethan, we all go to her house to hang out.” She tossed her plate in a nearby trash can. “How do you know her?”

“Oh, I work with her dad. I used to babysit her when she was in middle school.”

Paul and Lex traded anecdotes for a while, he was liking his new friend. Her little sister came up at one point and Lex introduced her, but she didn’t talk much and ended up drifting away toward a few other kids. They mostly had fun talking about TV shows they like to watch, favorite books, things like that. Paul told her some work stories he knew she’d get a kick out of. He bet she’d get along with Melissa great. And Emma, she would like this kid a lot.

Emma. The thought of her made him glance over to the bar, where she was standing up next to a wealthy man, holding an empty glass and looking very uncomfortable.

“Is that your girlfriend?”

“Yeah, that’s Emma.” He watched her try to move away from the bar, only for the wealthy looking man to follow her. “It was nice to meet you, Lex, I should go. Tell your sister it was nice to meet her, too!”

Lex waved as her new friend walked briskly off toward the bar.

\---

“That’s alright, I can go by myself.” she did not, at all, want this man to follow her. She wasn’t scared or anything, he was a decent guy. He was just boring and she didn’t want to have to be stuck talking to him all night.

Her heart skipped a beat when she saw Paul out of the corner of her eye.

“Excuse me, miss,” he said nonchalantly. “You’re absolutely stunning. Would you like to dance with me?” oh, instant regret. Paul was not a dancer. Not at all. But Emma took his hand in hers and smiled up at him.

“Absolutely.”

Paul draped his other arm around her shoulder and led her to the middle of the dance floor, while Blake watched in confused silence. “Emma,” he whispered. “I don’t really want to dance.”

“I know, Paul-”

He cut her off mid-sentence as he twirled her effortlessly. “But I can try.”

Emma beamed. Paul placed a hand on her waist, following the lead of the couples around them. Emma placed one hand on his back and interlaced their fingers with the other one.

At first they were at least trying to make it look like they knew what they were doing, but by the end they were a mess. They were laughing with each other as they took wrong steps and bumped together, Paul dipped Emma low enough that she almost fell, and they stepped on each other’s feet at least ten times. They loved every second of it.

\---

Later, at home, Paul opened the kitchen cabinet for some cups as Emma hoisted herself onto the counter. He filled them both with ice water and handed one to Emma. She took it gratefully.

“You know, Paul,” she said in between sips. “ We should definitely do this again sometime.”

Paul set his cup down and took Emma’s hand in his, leaning forward to gently kiss the back of it. He sighed contentedly and he couldn’t help but smile at her.

“No.”

**Author's Note:**

> wow i love my children who are bad at dancing  
> (also, unrelated but i did NOT abandon A New Home, i promise!! I have a lot planned for that one, I just felt like some Paulkins content)


End file.
